“He half looks like he’s having fun and half looks like he’s panicking, flapping his paws in the water as fast as they’ll go,” said Anderson, a senior majoring in finance and economics. “He’s there in the mornings after I had a long night, licking at my hand. One special trick I taught him is when I ask him who does he love, he’ll run up to and put his paws on me.”
It is this special companionship between owner and pet Anderson said she values most, but many animals in Tuscaloosa are still looking for owners and for homes. At any given time, the Tuscaloosa Metro Animal Shelter houses 250 stray dogs and cats.
Jennifer Earp, director at the shelter, said Tuscaloosa sees a rise in the number of stray animals during the summer months due to the warmer weather and populating strays. Sometimes people feed strays because they don’t want them to starve but that causes them to linger around people’s houses, she said.
“We have an overpopulation problem, period,” Earp said. “Because of the lack of availability at home, you see them running at large because people will oftentimes drop them off elsewhere, like deserted roads.”
Being a pet owner is a big responsibility, Anderson said. When she leaves to go on a trip, she always makes sure one of her friends can watch Hudson. When she goes home for the summer, she said she takes Hudson with her.
The animal shelter has been offering a number of programs to increase their adoption rates and find these animals new homes. Earp said adoption rates have increased every month since December 2014. One of the programs the shelter offers is Happy Hour, which rents out dogs to college students for a couple hours.
Miranda Therkelsen, a sophomore majoring in musical theatre, rented a terrier mix puppy during finals week. Getting a retractable leash, Therkelsen took the puppy to the park and walked it across the Quad. She said people would stop her and talk about the puppy.
Therkelsen said it was a great stress reliever for students like her, who aren’t allowed to have pets in their dorms or apartments, and it gives the dogs a chance to get out of their kennels.
“It helped me focus on something that’s not my phone or a test,” she said. “There’s something so spaced about playing with an animal because it’s not a distraction but something I can enjoy. Being with an animal makes you calm down, and everyone needs a break so why not do it with a puppy that needs to go outside?”
Earp said the Happy Hour program serves two purposes: it allows the dogs to get exercise and stay socialized and adoptable, and it gives them more exposure. People can see how these animals behave outside of the shelter, and it has led to more adoptions.
Betty Freeman, a board member at the Humane Society of West Alabama, said the organization partners with PetFinder to increase exposure on their pets. Since they are a no kill organization, the Humane Society can only take in around 30 dogs and 70 cats at a time.
“It allows us to have exposure 24/7, and we find a better calibre of people are looking on the internet, wanting to adopt,” she said.
On average, 300 animals get adopted from the Humane Society every year. Having volunteered at the organization for 12 years, Freeman said it is her love for the animals and finding them new homes that makes it all worth it.
“Most of this is no fault of the animal to be needing a home,” Freeman said. “We call it our adoption high when you see an animal that’s been on the streets, go to a loving home. That’s what it’s all about. That person needs the animal too sometimes, and it’s just a win win situation for everybody.”
The animal shelter offers a fostering program for animals that aren’t ready to be adopted due to age or availability. The program allows animals to live outside of the shelter and gives volunteers, who can’t have long term pets, a chance to interact with animals.
Both Freeman and Earp admitted that despite their best efforts, they can’t save every animal. Earp said Tuscaloosa has an overpopulation of pitbull mixes, a breed people don’t want due to insurance problems and rental agreements. The shelter is forced to put many of these dogs down due to the negative stigma surrounding them, preventing adoption.
If a feral dog (a dog that is a domestic descendant, but currently lives in the wild) shows an aggressive behavior, the shelter isn’t able to adopt them out, and the animal has to be euthanized. Earp said feral cats have more options due to the city’s new program, TSNIP. The program is designed to lower the feral cat population by trapping them, spraying and neutering them, then releasing them back into their colony.
“We work with them to cut down on the amount of feral cats that are euthanized here daily,” she said. “Feral cats will not seek you out to cause harm. They’re going to be completely scared of you. If you don’t mess with them, they won’t mess with you.”
Anderson said University Downs has around a dozen stray cats running around, but no one really complains. Many of the students, herself included, leave food out for them to eat. She adopted a baby kitten briefly until she could find it a new home. Hudson never barks at any of the cats and only sniffed curiously at the kitten when she brought it in.
At the humane society, Freeman said they take feral cats and bring them to barns to be barn cats. People, who have livestock or horses, need barn cats to help kill and combat their rat problems.
“We can’t save them all, but you chip away and educate,” she said. “You try to do the best you can. The key is to be responsible.”
